Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

As my colleagues in Sinn Féin have already outlined,the universal social charge is totally unjust, unfair and regressive. It amounts to nothing more than an attack on the working poor. The level of stress and anxiety that people are faced with, living from hand to mouth on a daily basis due to the penalties arising from the universal social charge, is shameful.

My party is calling for the abolition of this tax due to its inequitable and regressive nature. The inequality involved is not good for the economy. It is wasteful and costly, not to mention plain wrong. The universal social charge is a mechanism to enforce poverty, which drains public resources. We would be far better off if everybody was enabled to make a full contribution using a progressive system of taxation where people are working and earning a decent income to spend money to support business and pay their fair share of tax, which will ensure the Government can provide services, social support and other infrastructure.

The universal social charge is nothing more than a device that makes the position of the working poor worse. Those who are locked in precarious low-paid employment at risk of, and in, poverty are the ones who need protection. In my constituency of Laois-Offaly, which has one of the lowest rates of income per head of population in the State, this will bite hard. When will the Government realise that the working poor have nothing left to give? Previous Governments failed to manage the economy to the benefit of everyone and the chosen few who benefited during that time are still being looked after by this Government, which bent over backwards during the general election to talk of change. The most vulnerable, those with large families, low-income workers, older persons and persons with disabilities, were failed by bad policies and choices in the past, and wrong priorities. It is these bad policies and choices and wrong priorities that are now being carried on to ensure it is still those who have least who are being compelled to bear the heaviest burden of paying the universal social charge.

Where is the change that was promised? There is no balance, fairness or justice used in this system. Both Labour and Fine Gael - I welcome the fact that there is one Labour Deputy back now to hear me - refused to commit to abolishing the tax despite their protestations when it was introduced by the Fianna Fáil Party. I note that the Government amendment to my party's motion restates the programme for Government commitment to review the tax but, once again, fails to state the timeframe in which it will conduct this review. Flawed as the original income and health levies were, there was at least some small progressive element to them.

The Fine Gael-Labour amendment to the Sinn Féin motion states that "the reinstatement of the income and health levies would bring poverty traps back into the system". It may come as a shock to the Government, and Members on the Government benches, but poverty traps have not gone away. If anything, they are worsening. The Government amendment is meaningless for the 275,000 who are so poor that they lack some of the basic necessities of life, including adequate food, shelter, warmth and clothing. Eliminating poverty traps, not blindly pursuing and embedding policies that advance them, should be a national goal and a priority for the Government.

Everyone is entitled to a decent quality of life and there is no reason this Government cannot scrap the universal social charge and replace it, as Sinn Féin has been calling for, with a higher tax band for those earning in excess of €100,000. From the Government's perspective, the only reason to retain the universal social charge is to continue protecting those who are not vulnerable and at risk. I ask those in government, particularly those in the Labour Party who called for change during the election campaign, to support the Sinn Féin motion accordingly.

See this speech in context